Tobacco companies lobby : why is it so massive ?

It is without a doubt that tobacco companies lobby. However, they do this activity in such a huge and massive manner that has led several concerned institutions to raise an alarm. Tobacco industries in both the United States and the United Kingdom over the years have been known to be utilizing well connected and effective registered contract lobbyists.

These lobbyists operate quietly behind the scenes with well-calculated insider strategies in order to propagate the industries’ interests. They also ensure that they build their employer’s influence and power in the state legislatures.

Plain packaging legislature

Cigarette smoking, as we all know, is very harmful to our health. For this reasons numerous legislative proposals have since been brought up in order to combat the spread of cigarette smoking. One of these legislative proposals was the introduction of plain packaging. This type of packaging would only do more harm than good to the companies. This is because they were only supposed to show terrible photographs of medical conditions brought about by tobacco smoking. The packages would actually scare away potential customers of the tobacco products. Big companies had to use massive lobbying to defeat and prevent the implementation of this proposal.

Tax increase on tobacco products

The industries have also invested massively on advocacy so as to minimize the proposed tax increases on the products. Large tax increases on the products would be detrimental to the industry. This is because the high prices will also scare away potential customers as they are very price sensitive. Big companies would then suffer losses due to decreased number of sales. The advantage would be to the cigarette smugglers who would bring in low-priced cigarettes. The big companies hence had to invest massively in lobbying so as to prevent rapid tax increases on the products. This was a move done in order to maintain their profits.

Clean indoor air legislation

Another reason why the tobacco companies hugely invest on lobbying is to fight other legislative proposals such as the clean indoor air legislation. Clean air laws were enacted in order to minimize the harmful consequences of environmental tobacco smoke. Big tobacco companies have since spent a lot of money on lobbying so as to get several exemptions on this law. All they seem to care about is their profits. Environmental pollution and health hazards caused by tobacco smoking really matter less to them.

Freedom of advertising and sale of tobacco products

Advocacy has also been done massively by these companies so as to get their freedom in advertising and overall selling of tobacco products. There are numerous health concerned institutions that are really fighting hard to try and slow down the distribution of products. There are varieties of laws that have since been established to ban the advertising of tobacco products. Through heavy lobbying, these companies were able to successfully argue their case and prevent these laws from being enacted. They argued that advertising is mostly meant to encourage adult smokers to try new brands, with the help of appealing marketing techniques like William Hill promotional code.

In summary, these companies heavily invest in lobbying since they know very well that their products are harmful to the society. This can be proven by the fact that a lot of legislative laws have been brought forward in a bid to slow down the distribution and usage. In order to maintain their high profit, tobacco companies have to invest heavily in lobbying so that the lobbyist can help them manipulate the regulatory decisions made by the members of the legislatures. It is through lobbying that these companies have been able to escape tax increases on tobacco products, detrimental legislative laws such as plain packaging, the ban on advertisement and also clean indoor air legislation. Without lobbying, these companies could not be enjoying the freedom they have to sell their products, and this would really affect the huge profits they register today.